'Unbelievable' cost of area forums

10:50am Wednesday 27th February 2013 in Letters

WIRRAL Globe reported in its edition of February 13 that the area forums are to be stopped.

One of the reasons you gave was that they cost £1,300 for each person attending.

That figure is unbelievable. Even if only one member of the public attended a forum, the meeting room hire cost and possibly overtime pay for some of the junior officials would have to be absurdly high to make such a total.

My wife and I have been frequent attendees since the idea was put into practice ten or more years ago.

Those to which we went were always well attended.

If there was one criticism it would be that too much time was taken up by council officers making presentations on subjects of little interest to the audience, leaving too little time for the open discussion which was usually the most productive part of the meeting.

Charles Picken, by email

 

 

Comments(1)

Hugo1008 says...
7:30pm Thu 28 Feb 13

Perhaps the phenomenal costs incurred was down to the excessive expenses claimed by the councilors who bothered to attend, coupled with the overtime cost of the Police, Fire, and NHS staff along with the minor section heads of the numerous WBC departments.
When in fact the only people who gave anything like sensible answers to any questions were in the most part the actual council communication officer who organised and managed the actual Forum Meeting.

I was asked to attended a number of Forums across the Wirral as a representative of a charity organisation.
During that time I failed to find one elected Councilor that was able to answer or contribute any sensible comment that was of any value to the members of public who asked a question, especially concerning the disabled.
So yes they were a monumental waste of time and resources, good riddance.

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